


Just Passing Through

by JohnAmendAll



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Sapphire and Steel
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 18:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3143582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnAmendAll/pseuds/JohnAmendAll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not only jolly men in red who come down the chimney.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Passing Through

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lost_spook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/gifts).



At the first clatter from the direction of her office, Liz had jumped to her feet. Concurrently with the second, she was standing in the doorway of the room, her umbrella firmly clutched in her left hand. She was in time to see the gas fire rock on its mountings, and tumble forward into the room. In the fireplace thus revealed, a very familiar grey-clad, red-haired figure was crouching. 

"Doctor Shaw?" Silver raised an eyebrow. "This is certainly an unexpected pleasure." 

"Unexpected I'll give you," Liz said, and hung the umbrella neatly on the back of a chair. "Did you just climb down that chimney? Don't tell me all those stories about Father Christmas are because of you." 

"No, I didn't." Still crouching in the fireplace, Silver looked upward, aiming what looked like a small torch at the brickwork above him. "I came down a completely different chimney. I shouldn't be here." 

"Where do you think you ought to be, then?" 

Silver tapped the floor. "Who lives downstairs?" 

"Professor Spencer. Her subject's History of Art, I think." 

"History of Art," Silver repeated, doubtfully. "Does she have any hobbies?" 

"How would I know?" 

"You live on the next floor up," Silver pointed out. 

"This is a college," Liz retorted. "We all pride ourselves on not knowing anything about each other's personal lives. It's a University tradition. Like having rooms on staircases rather than corridors." 

"How very helpful." Silver disappeared from the fireplace, reappearing beside Liz's desk. He picked up a transistor radio and examined it thoughtfully. "You weren't using this, were you?" 

"Don't tell me: I won't ever be using it again," Liz said. 

"Splendid." Silver pressed his fingers delicately to the edge of the radio, then opened it as if it were a book. "Oh, and do you want that cupboard for anything?" 

"Only to keep my files in." 

"Can't they go somewhere else?" 

Liz sighed. "If it's necessary. You're going to tell me it is necessary, aren't you?" 

"It would be very helpful." Silver was teasing a long, glowing filament out of the interior of the radio, and winding it round his left forefinger. He momentarily paused and looked her in the eye. "Please, Doctor Shaw?" 

"Fine." Liz crossed to the cupboard, which was the size of a small wardrobe, and unlocked it. Trying to keep the files in as much order as possible, she transferred them to various chairs around the room. 

"That's a great help," Silver said. "Do the shelves come out, too?" 

"I don't know." Liz gave one shelf a cautious tug. "It looks like they're screwed in. Don't worry," she added, seeing that he was still spooling filament out of the radio. "I've got a screwdriver in the desk." 

Unscrewing the shelves proved a much harder job than Liz had anticipated, since the screws were rusted and needed a lot of effort before they would budge. By the time she managed to shift the last screw, she felt hot, bad-tempered and dishevelled, with perhaps just a dash of triumph. 

"Thank you," Silver said. "This looks like it'll do." 

He ran his finger along the twelve edges of the cupboard; it left a glimmering line of light, surrounding the cupboard with a luminous cuboid. Then he stepped into the cupboard, and turned to face outward. 

"I suggest you maintain your excellent tradition of incuriosity for the next few minutes," he said. "No matter what you hear. Or sense by other means." 

He closed the door behind him. Immediately, with no more sound than a hum at the edge of hearing, the cupboard sank through the floor. Where it had stood, a white glow suffused the floorboards, but quickly faded. 

_No matter what you hear,_ Liz thought. Hesitantly, she turned away, wondering if she ought to remove herself from the danger zone, however big that was. As she did so, the floor seemed to ripple beneath her; she caught at a chair, whose wooden back had suddenly gained the texture of wet cotton wool. A low moan filled the air, rising and falling, and then was blotted out by the spitting, crackling sound of a thousand frying pans. 

As the cacophony faded away with a final flourish of shattering glass, and the room stopped quivering under her feet, Liz saw the cupboard reappear through the floor, heading upward. It showed no signs of stopping, but continued rising until it had disappeared through the ceiling. 

Liz sighed again, decided that the show was over, and went to make herself a cup of tea. Before the kettle had boiled, Silver had appeared once more, perched on the pedal bin. 

"I'm making tea," Liz said, without preliminary. "Want some?" 

Silver held up a hand. "Not while I'm on duty, thank you." 

"Then what are you doing here? Somehow I don't think it's to help me clear up." 

"I wanted to thank you for your assistance, Doctor Shaw." Silver took her hand. "The time you gained me was invaluable." 

"Should I ask what happened down there?" Liz said, nodding at the floor. 

Silver gave her a bland look. "Well, you heard someone breaking the window, didn't you? An opportunistic burglar, of course. Would you believe that of all the valuable artworks he could have stolen, he contented himself with two lava lamps and a kit-built Geiger counter? I think the police will find it a most puzzling case." 

"Lava lamps and a Geiger counter," Liz repeated. "Does this have anything to do with random number generation?" 

"If you look too long at random numbers, you start seeing patterns," Silver said. "Sometimes the patterns see you, too." He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. "Do take care they don't see you, Elizabeth." 

And then Liz was alone in the kitchen, the kettle whistling cheerfully as it boiled. 

Having made her tea, she returned to her office and surveyed the devastation. In minutes, Silver had managed to reduce her neatly-ordered room to chaos. Or, worse, get _her_ to reduce it to chaos for him. She'd have to order a new cupboard from somewhere before she could start to think about returning the files to their proper places. Not to mention a new radio. 

She couldn't quite bring herself to wish Silver hadn't paid her a visit that evening, though.


End file.
